Look Back in Anger Characters | GradeSaver Buy Study Guide Jimmy Porter Jimmy Porter is the play's main character. He is the "Angry Young Man" who expresses his frustration for the lack of feelings in his placid domestic life. Jimmy can be understood as both a hero for his unfiltered expressions of emotion and frustration in a culture that propagated unemotional resignation. He can also be considered a villain for the ways in which his anger proves to be destructive to those in his life. Cliff Lewis Cliff is a friend to both Jimmy and Alison. Cliff lives with them in their attic apartment. He is a working class Welsh man and Jimmy makes sure to often point out that he is "common" and uneducated. Cliff believes this is the reason that Jimmy keeps him as a friend. He is quite fond of Alison and they have a strange physically affectionate relationship throughout the play. Alison Porter Alison Porter is Jimmy's wife. She comes from Britain's upper class, but married into Jimmy's working class lifestyle. The audience learns in the first act that she is pregnant with Jimmy's child. Jimmy's destructive anger causes her great strain and she eventually leaves him.

Her child miscarries and she comes back to Jimmy to show him that she has undergone great suffering. Helena Charles Helena Charles is Alison's best friend. She lives with them in their apartment while visiting for work. Helena is from an upper class family. She is responsible for getting Alison to leave Jimmy. She and Jimmy then begin an affair. Her sense of morality leads her to leave. She can be considered the play's moral compass. Colonel Redfern Colonel Redfern is Alison's father. He represents Britain's great Edwardian past. He was a military leader in India for many years before returning with his family to England. He is critical of Jimmy and Alison's relationship, but accepts that he is to blame for many of their problems because of his meddling in their affairs. Look Back in Anger Characters - eNotes.com Look Back in Anger Characters link Link Jimmy Porter Jimmy Porter, a twenty-five-year-old man who lives in Britain’s industrial midlands. An educated, well-read individual, Jimmy works in a factory, tends a sweet-stall he is trying to buy, and issues diatribes about British society, which he feels has denied him opportunity simply because of his working-class background.

Jimmy prides himself on his honesty, but he can be cruel, as is seen in his verbal attacks on his wife, Alison, and on his friend Cliff Lewis, who lives with them. Jimmy excuses himself for mistreating Alison by insisting that she is too possessive and that she cannot understand him because she has never suffered, as he suffered when, at the age of ten, he had to watch his father die. Because he insists on complete loyalty, he feels betrayed when his wife does not accompany him to the deathbed of a friend’s mother, yet he does not see anything wrong with his having an affair with Helena, his wife’s friend. The egocentric Jimmy seems incapable of empathizing with his wife, even when she grieves over losing their baby. He takes her back only after she has completely abased herself to him. Alison Porter Alison Porter, Jimmy’s wife. A woman of upper-middle-class background, she is perceptive enough to understand that her husband resents everything in her that reminds him of the social differences between them. After three years of marriage, she is miserable. The only way that she can survive Jimmy’s constant verbal attacks on her and on her family is to conceal her feelings and remain silent.

Although she says that Jimmy is the only man she has ever loved, Alison so yearns for peace that, with the encouragement of her friend Helena, she finally leaves him without telling him that she is pregnant. After losing the baby, she returns to Jimmy, begs his forgiveness for betraying him, and promises that because she has experienced suffering, she can now be the kind of wife he wants and needs. Cliff Lewis Cliff Lewis, a friend of Jimmy, also from the working classes. A gentle person, he does not have Jimmy’s fire or his wit, but he also lacks his cruelty. Cliff is genuinely fond of Alison. He shows his appreciation for her housekeeping efforts, and he tries to defend her from Jimmy’s verbal abuse. It is he, not Jimmy, who bandages Alison’s arm after she burns it. Of all the characters in the play, Cliff seems to understand best what other people are feeling. Even when Helena thinks that she hates Jimmy, Cliff guesses that she really desires him, and he alone sees through her attempts to break up the marriage. Because he so dislikes Helena, Cliff moves out when he senses that she is moving in.

Helena Charles Helena Charles, a beautiful, elegant actress, a friend of Alison and a member of her social circle. Helena comes to spend a few days with the Porters, but, finding herself increasingly attracted to Jimmy, she stays on, intent on driving a wedge between Jimmy and Alison. As Alison’s confidant, Helena urges her to face up to Jimmy or to leave him; meanwhile, she increases the pressure by wiring Alison’s father to come for her. When Alison walks out, Helena remains, becoming Jimmy’s mistress and his housekeeper. By the time Alison comes back, Helena has realized that the affair is finished, and with her usual dignity she goes on her way. Colonel Redfern Colonel Redfern, Alison’s father, a good-looking man of sixty who has returned to England after spending forty years in the army, primarily in India. When Alison became involved with Jimmy, the colonel did not oppose his wife in her efforts to break up the match. When he arrives to pick up Alison, he admits that he should have taken a stronger stand and even confesses a liking for Jimmy, who has the energy both the colonel and Alison lack.

In his generosity and his decency, the colonel symbolizes the best of the old order. His appearance in the play, so unlike Jimmy’s caricature of him, casts doubt on Jimmy’s clever but stereotype-based pronouncements. Start Free Trial Start your free trial with eNotes to access more than 30,000 study guides. Get help with any book. The character of Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger from LitCharts | The creators of SparkNotes Alison Porter Jimmy is the “angry young man” of the play, usually found spouting tirades against the complacency of the British upper classes, and especially against his wife Alison and then his lover Helena. Born working class but highly educated, like his friend and roommate Cliff, but has an ambivalent relationship with his educated status, seeing himself mostly as a working class man and yet frustrated that his education can do nothing to affect his class status.

“He is a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of tenderness and freebooting cruelty.” Jimmy “alienates the sensitive and insensitive alike,” and his “blistering honesty, or apparent honesty…makes few friends.” Jimmy is a frustrated character, railing against his feelings of alienation and uselessness in post-war England. Jimmy Porter Quotes in Look Back in Anger The Look Back in Anger quotes below are all either spoken by Jimmy Porter or refer to Jimmy Porter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: ). Note: all page and citation info for the quotes below refers to the Penguin Books edition of Look Back in Anger published in 1982. Act 1 Quotes He is a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of tenderness and freebooting cruelty; restless, importunate, full of pride, a combination which alienates the sensitive and insensitive alike. Blistering honesty, or apparent honesty, like his, makes few friends. To many he may seem sensitive to the point of vulgarity. To others, he is simply a loudmouth.

To be as vehement as he is is to be almost non-committal. Related Characters: Jimmy Porter Download it! Jimmy Porter Character Timeline in Look Back in Anger The timeline below shows where the character Jimmy Porter appears in Look Back in Anger. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Act 1 ...apartment at the top of an old Victorian house. When the curtain rises, we see Jimmy Porter and Cliff Lewis, seated on opposite sides of he stage and reading newspapers. There... (full context) In the first stage direction, Osborne describes Jimmy as “a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice” and says, “to be as vehement... (full context) Jimmy complains that the Sunday papers are boring, and also that they make him “feel ignorant.”... (full context) Jimmy decides that he’s hungry, to which Cliff replies that he’ll get fat. Jimmy denies this:... (full context) ...to do. Cliff “kisses her hand and puts her fingers in his mouth.” He tells Jimmy that Alison is a beautiful girl. Jimmy responds, “that’s what they all tell me,” and... (full context) ...by Bishop Bromley, who said that Christians should aid the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb.

Jimmy asks if this moves Alison, and she says that it does. He claims surprise. Reading... (full context) Jimmy asks Alison to make some tea. She looks up at him, and asks if he... (full context) Jimmy says that he hates Sundays. “Always the same ritual. Reading the papers, drinking tea, ironing…Our... (full context) Cliff brings the conversation back to newspapers. Jimmy summarizes another article that he says was written by a man like Colonel Redfern “casting... (full context) ...and asks what he should do. She says that he should take his trousers off. Jimmy agrees. Alison says she can iron them now. Cliff agrees, and starts taking off his... (full context) Jimmy begins to scan the Radio Times for a concert, and finds one by Vaughan Williams.... (full context) Neither Cliff nor Alison responds to his tirade, even when Jimmy gives Cliff a kick. Jimmy changes the subject, asking whether Alison’s friend Webster is coming... (full context) Jimmy begins to say that he hasn’t felt that enthusiasm since—and Alison interrupts him, saying that... (full context) ...that he’s sleepy, and doesn’t feel like going to work at the sweet stall tomorrow.

Jimmy changes the subject back to Madeline—“she had more animation in her little finger than you... (full context) Alison asks Jimmy, “very quietly and earnestly,” not to go on. He turns from the window to look... (full context) Cliff tries to get Jimmy to back off from the tirade, but Jimmy says that he couldn’t provoke Alison anyways,... (full context) Jimmy turns his attack to Alison’s brother Nigel, saying that he “is just about as vague... (full context) Alison continues ironing—this is the only sound in the room. “Cliff stares at the floor.” Jimmy recovers from his tirade by again looking out the window. It starts to rain. Then... (full context) Jimmy says that he looked up the word pusillanimous recently, and found that it’s a perfect... (full context) Jimmy picks up a dictionary. He tells Cliff that if he’s pronouncing pusillanimous wrong, Alison will... (full context) Jimmy is watching Alison from across the room. Her “face seems to contort, and it looks... (full context) ...arms round her waist, and kisses her. She smiles, and gives his nose a tug. Jimmy watches from his chair.” He doesn’t react.

Alison suggests to Cliff that they have a... (full context) Cliff returns to the newspapers, and Alison to her ironing. After a while, Jimmy snaps at both of them for making too much noise. His foot twitches. Then he... (full context) The church bells begin to ring outside. Jimmy yells out the window at them to stop. Alison tells him to be quiet—she doesn’t... (full context) Cliff, fooling around, says to Jimmy, “well, shall we dance?” He begins to push Jimmy around the apartment floor, but Jimmy... (full context) Jimmy and Cliff begin to fight. They fall onto the floor in the center of the... (full context) ...As he walks away, Alison says that she’s forgotten what it’s like to feel young. Jimmy said something similar the other day, and Alison pretended not to listen to him, in... (full context) Cliff suggests that Alison tell Jimmy now —“after all, he does love you. You don’t need me to tell you that.”... (full context) Alison tells Cliff, to his surprise, that she and Jimmy didn’t sleep together before marrying. Once they were married, Jimmy taunted Alison for being a...

(full context) Alison gets up, holding the folded clothes. She asks Cliff whether he thinks Jimmy is right about “everything.” Cliff responds that he and Jimmy are both working people, and... (full context) Alison asks if she should tell Jimmy about the baby. Cliff puts his arm around her and says that it’ll be all... (full context) Cliff says he doesn’t know why the hell Alison married Jimmy, and Jimmy asks if the two of them would have been better off together. Cliff... (full context) Cliff says that he thinks Alison is beautiful, and that Jimmy does too, but is “too much of a pig to say so.” Jimmy says that... (full context) Alison goes to look for one in her handbag. Jimmy, “trying to re-establish himself,” begins to tease Cliff, who is getting “more like a little... (full context) Alison discovers that she doesn’t have any more cigarettes, and Jimmy yells to Cliff (who is “dragging Jimmy along the floor by his feet”) to go... (full context) Jimmy stands beside Alison, who is still rummaging in her purse. “She becomes aware of his... (full context) Jimmy says that he can hardly get through a moment without feeling attracted to Alison, and...

(full context) Jimmy puts his head against Alison’s stomach, but she is “still on guard a little.” Then... (full context) Jimmy asks what Cliff meant by saying “don’t forget,” when he left the room. Alison says... (full context) Alison is worried by “this threat of a different mood,” but Jimmy goes on to call her “a beautiful, great-eyed squirrel.” Alison “nods brightly, relieved.” Jimmy begins... (full context) Jimmy asks why she thinks she’s happy, and Alison says, “everything just seems all right suddenly.”... (full context) Jimmy’s mood has changed. Cliff jokes that Jimmy was supposed to makes some tea, and when... (full context) Jimmy remarks that just a few minutes ago, things seemed to be going well. Quoting Shakespeare,... (full context) Jimmy says that Webster, who he thinks is gay, is one example. He believes that Webster... (full context) As he speaks, Jimmy has been picking through Alison’s handbag. Cliff asks him if that isn’t Alison’s private property,... (full context) Jimmy asks Alison what Helena wanted. Alison says that Helena is coming over. Helena is working... (full context) Jimmy says to Alison that he hopes she will one day learn suffering.

He wants something... (full context) Jimmy says, ostensibly to Cliff but also partly to himself and Alison, that he has “never... (full context) Act 2, Scene 1 ...the stove pouring boiling water into a teapot. She wears a slip and no shoes. Jimmy plays the trumpet from across the hall. The table in the center of the room... (full context) ...but nevertheless expects to receive respect from all people, including other women like Alison. “In Jimmy,” the stage direction says, Helena “arouses all the rabble-rousing instincts of his spirit.” She has... (full context) ...have changed now that she’s not on her own. Alison asks if Helena has told Jimmy that tea is ready. She says that she knocked on the door of Cliff’s room,... (full context) Helena asks Alison if Jimmy drinks. Alison, “rather startled,” says that he isn’t an alcoholic. There is a pause while... (full context) ...to be happening as much since she’s around. “Perhaps he finds my presence inhibiting—even if Jimmy’s isn’t.” Alison says that she and Cliff are just “fond of each other,” but Helena...

(full context) ...some other pleasure.” Helena says it’s hard to believe they’re so lazy, and asks whether Jimmy approves. Alison says, “it’s what he would call a question of allegiances.” Then she explains,... (full context) ...They get along well because of Cliff’s kind temperament. It was different with Hugh Tanner, Jimmy’s childhood friend (Hugh’s mum helped Jimmy start his sweet stall). The couple moved in with... (full context) Alison says that she met Hugh on her wedding night and disliked him immediately. Jimmy was “pathetically anxious” that his friend and his wife would get along. They all got... (full context) ...Alison says that her mother had taken stewardship of Alison’s wealth after the marriage. Instead, Jimmy and Hugh started using Alison’s connections to invite themselves to parties, hoping to find money... (full context) Helena says that she can’t understand why Alison acted that way—or why she married Jimmy. Alison says that “there must be about six different answers.” For one thing, her family,... (full context) ...Hugh. Alison says that her relationship with him only got worse, and that Hugh and Jimmy even disrupted some of Nigel’s political events. Then Hugh, who was writing a novel, decided...

(full context) Alison suspects that Hugh’s mum and Jimmy both blame her for the quarrel, and for Hugh’s leaving the country. She doesn’t dislike... (full context) Helena asks why Alison hasn’t told Jimmy about the baby, and Alison assures her that it couldn’t be another man’s child—“I’ve never... (full context) Helena grabs Alison’s arm. She says that Alison must fight, or escape—otherwise, Jimmy will kill her. Cliff enters. He asks if the tea is ready. Alison says it... (full context) Jimmy says that “anyone who doesn’t like real jazz, hasn’t any feeling either for music or... (full context) Then Jimmy launches into another attack on Alison’s friends, while Cliff and Helena eat their meal and... (full context) Jimmy says he’s thought of a new song, one that is from the perspective of a... (full context) Helena asks why Jimmy is being so “unpleasant,” “offensive,” and “tiresome.” Jimmy “roars with laughter,” and teases Helena for... (full context) Then Jimmy lets fly an attack against Helena, saying that this is a cheap trick to win...

(full context) Jimmy says that he knew from the moment he met Alison’s mother that she would stop... (full context) Jimmy gives an example of Alison’s mother’s dirty tactics of motherly protection. She jumped to terrible... (full context) Jimmy asks Alison if Helena has really won her back. Helena cuts in—“You’ve no right to... (full context) Jimmy smiles at Alison, who is still at her dressing table, and “hasn’t broken.” Helena is... (full context) ...and says that a little thing like going to church doesn’t merit all this fuss. Jimmy says that if she can’t understand that, she isn’t so “clever” after all. Helena says... (full context) Jimmy asks why Helena is still around, given that her play has already finished up. Helena... (full context) Jimmy says that on that day, they were in a hurry to marry—it seems hard to... (full context) Jimmy asks Alison if she’s going to be swayed by Helena. Her friend, he says, is... (full context) Helena says, calmly, that if Jimmy weren’t so far away, she’d have slapped him. Jimmy asks Helena if she has ever...

(full context) Jimmy says that Helena hasn’t answered his question, and she replies that she has never seen... (full context) His mother may have pitied his father, Jimmy says—but she didn’t care as he did. “At the end of twelve months,” he says,... (full context) Without looking at Alison, Jimmy asks why she lets people do these things to him, when, he says, “I’ve given... (full context) Jimmy is “hardly able to get his words out.” “My heart is so full, I feel... (full context) Jimmy says that Alison might want to return to him someday. When that happens, he says,... (full context) ...here.” Helena asks what’s wrong with him. Cliff says that he may not agree with Jimmy, but that doesn’t mean that he’s on Helena’s side. Her presence has made things worse... (full context) ...Redfern will arrive around “tea-time” the next day. She hopes that Alison’s departure will cause Jimmy to “come to his senses, and face up to things.” (full context) ...phone. Helena says it was “Sister somebody.” Alison speculates that it was a hospital, as Jimmy is unlikely to know anyone in a convent.

She says they should get going. Jimmy... (full context) To Alison, Jimmy says that he remembers Hugh’s mum’s reaction to their wedding photo. She rhapsodized over how... (full context) Alison and Helena exit. Jimmy “looks about him unbelievingly,” rising to lean against the dresser. The teddy bear is nearby.... (full context) Act 2, Scene 2 ...bewildered by it.” He says, to both himself and Alison, that this is beyond him. Jimmy “speaks a different language from any of us.” He asks where Jimmy has gone. (full context) Alison says that Jimmy is seeing Hugh’s mum, because she’s had a stroke and her son is away. She... (full context) ...to be occupying himself with.” He’s never been able to understand it, and thinks that Jimmy is probably “quite clever in his way.” Alison says, without interest, that Jimmy has tried... (full context) ...and the Colonel interprets this to mean that she was “afraid of being disloyal” to Jimmy. Alison laughs at this, saying that Jimmy thought she was disloyal to write to her... (full context) ...himself, and the Colonel agrees that everyone involved deserves some blame.

Yet he says that Jimmy is “honest enough” and that Alison’s mother “acted in good faith as well.” Of Alison... (full context) Alison tells the Colonel what Jimmy said about her mother and the worms. The Colonel responds with a mild “I see,”... (full context) ...“revenge.” Colonel Redfern looks baffled. Alison confirms that “some people do actually marry for revenge.” Jimmy, she says, complicated her life by throwing down the “gauntlet.” Colonel Redfern says, “your husband... (full context) Colonel Redfern says that Jimmy might be right—he might be a relic of the Edwardian past. He left England for... (full context) Cliff says that Jimmy will return soon, and asks Alison to wait for him. She refuses, and Helena says... (full context) ...make herself some. Cliff asks if she’s staying, and she says yes. She asks what Jimmy will do when he finds out, and wonders if he might look up Madeline. Cliff... (full context) Helena asks if he’s staying. Cliff says that he’s leaving, in case Jimmy is about to come in from the London train. He’s had a hard day, and...

(full context) Jimmy reads Alison’s letter: “I need peace so desperately, and, at the moment, I am willing... (full context) Helena says that Jimmy should stop being so selfish, and tells him that Alison is going to have a... (full context) Act 3, Scene 1 ...is once again a Sunday. Helena’s belongings have replaced Alison’s in the apartment. Cliff and Jimmy sit in armchairs reading the paper, as they did in Act 1. Helena is ironing.... (full context) Jimmy asks if his pipe smoke bothers Helena, and she says that she likes it. Jimmy... (full context) Jimmy says that he suspects “somebody’s been sticking pins into my wax image for years.” Then... (full context) The “whole point of a sacrifice,” Jimmy says, “is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place.”... (full context) Cliff says that he has just read that, and Jimmy says, “I think you’re actually acquiring yourself a curiosity, my boy.” He summarizes some gossipy... (full context) Then Jimmy asks if he saw Helena talking to a reverend the other day. She says that...

(full context) Jimmy changes the subject to a song that he made up that day, then suggests some... (full context) Cliff and Jimmy begin to fight and roll on the floor, and Jimmy begins to gain the upper... (full context) Jimmy “flops into his armchair,” and says that Cliff looks like “Marlon Brando” (in A Streetcar... (full context) Cliff goes on to say that the sweet stall suits Jimmy because he is “highly educated,” but he needs something “a bit better.” The other thing,... (full context) Jimmy suggests that Helena find Cliff a rich friend, because that’s what he wants. Cliff says,... (full context) Jimmy asks, “why, why, why, why do we let these women bleed us to death?” He... (full context) ...dry it in his room. Cliff exits. Helena crosses back to the ironing board, and Jimmy says that he’s “sick” of seeing her ironing. He tells her to get “glammed up”... (full context) Jimmy says that Cliff is leaving, and Helena says that he’s already told her. She says... (full context) Jimmy says that he’ll close the sweet stall, and they’ll leave together. Helena agrees.

He says... (full context) Act 3, Scene 2 The scene opens just a few minutes later. Jimmy is playing his jazz trumpet across the hall. Helena is standing at the table pouring... (full context) ...to apologize. Alison protests that it was “unfair and cruel” to return. She has adopted Jimmy’s sense of dramatic timing, she says, but it is in “bad taste.” She says that... (full context) ...protests, “Helena, don’t bring out the book of rules,” and Helena says that Alison is Jimmy’s wife, and that she has never forgotten her friend’s “right” to him. Alison says that... (full context) ...that she regrets coming here, and that she didn’t intend to break up Helena and Jimmy. Helena says that she believes that, but that it makes things seem even worse. Alison... (full context) Alison says that Helena wrote that she loved Jimmy, and Helena confirms this. Alison says that she couldn’t believe this at first, but then... (full context) Helena says that she has discovered “what is wrong with Jimmy…He was born out of his time.” Alison agrees. Helena says that there’s no place for...

(full context) Helena says that she sees now that it’s “over” between her and Jimmy. Alison’s presence reminds her how wrong the situation is. She says, “he wants one world... (full context) ...isn’t “logical,” it’s “right.” Offstage, “the trumpet gets louder.” Alison says that Helena shouldn’t leave Jimmy, because he needs her. He wants something specific from women, she says—a “cross between a... (full context) The trumpet eventually stops, and Helena calls Jimmy to speak with them. Jimmy asks if Alison is still there, and Helena says that... (full context) Alison replies that it was her first loss. Jimmy looks at her, then looks back at Helena. She crosses to him, and says that... (full context) Helena says that she’ll get Alison a hotel room. Jimmy says that he always knew that Helena would eventually leave him when the going got... (full context) Alison says that she’s sorry, and Jimmy says that she never sent any flowers to Hugh’s mum. She starts to move, but... (full context) Jimmy asks if Alison remembers the first night they saw each other. He said that she... (full context) ...saint. I want to be a lost cause.

I want to be corrupt and futile!” Jimmy watches “helplessly.” She says that the “human being inside [her] body” has gone. She had... (full context) Jimmy says “with a kind of mocking, tender irony,” that they’ll go be happy in their... (full context) Cite This Page Choose citation style: Helm, Sally. "Look Back in Anger Characters: Jimmy Porter." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 26 Aug 2015. Web. 19 Jan 2017. Helm, Sally. "Look Back in Anger Characters: Jimmy Porter." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 26 Aug 2015. Web. 19 Jan 2017. Helm, Sally. "Look Back in Anger Characters: Jimmy Porter." LitCharts LLC, August 26, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2017. Helm, Sally. "Look Back in Anger Characters: Jimmy Porter." LitCharts LLC, August 26, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2017.

Copy to Clipboard Look Back in Anger | Variety Print February 2, 2012 | 05:00PM PT Jimmy Porter, the pissed-off young man in John Osborne's seminal 1956 drama "Look Back In Anger," shocked British auds and dealt a death blow to the well-made play. Jimmy Porter, the pissed-off young man in John Osborne’s seminal 1956 drama “ Look Back In Anger,” shocked British auds and dealt a death blow to the well-made play. The groundbreaking kitchen-sink drama still has shock value in Sam Gold ’s meticulous revival — surprisingly, not so much for its raging social criticism of postwar British values but for the ferocity of its Strindbergian attack on a sado-masochistic marriage. Well matched as the smoldering Jimmy and his punching-bag wife, Matthew Rhys (“Brothers and Sisters”) and newcomer Sarah Goldberg battle it out to a draw.

Set designer Andrew Lieberman appears to have taken his cue from a line in the play that describes the Porters’ squalid one-room flat as “a very narrow strip of plain hell.” Translated literally, the playing area is reduced to a sliver of stage in front of a looming back-wall painted black and devoid of visual definition. In this confined setting, the characters can only stand or squat or slouch against the wall — which pretty much sums up the limited dimensions of their lives. Like a wild beast locked up in a very small cage, Jimmy Porter (Rhys) expresses his discontent in angry roars directed at his browbeaten wife, Alison (Goldberg), a pallid blonde who fights back in classic passive-aggressive style — by ignoring him. To ease the monotony, Jimmy directs portions of his unending diatribe to his long-suffering friend, Cliff, played with disarming gentleness by Adam Driver. Rhys fails to tap into the depths of rage that threaten to transform this angry man into a dangerous one — the Jimmy Porter who scared auds out of their wits in the 1950s (a period well evoked by David Zinn ’s costumes).

Thesp does succeed, however, at what may be the harder job of making Jimmy sympathetic, even likable, to modern-day auds. Character is a working-class lad with a good brain that earned him a college education but no prospects in rigidly class-structured postwar Blighty. Osborne gives him the intelligence and the vocabulary to voice his snarling complaints against society in a rough but eloquent idiom that Rhys delivers with good grace. Problem is, Osborne sets it up so that Jimmy directs his many grievances, even his legitimate ones against a society with “no beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm,” exclusively at his wife. As Alison tells it, she became “a sort of hostage” that Jimmy kidnapped from the privileged social classes he despised. Goldberg (who has a career in England and makes her New York debut here) gives well-bred Alison the backbone and the stiff upper lip to resist Jimmy’s furious onslaughts against her family, her friends and her own character with a wall of silence that drives him crazy. But his relentless badgering is so cruelly sadistic that he loses claim to being a social critic and is better defined as a wife batterer.

Curiously, Osborne hasn’t given Jimmy much in the way of sex appeal, which makes his domination of Alison less than credible. The sexual dynamic must also be taken largely on faith when Alison is replaced in this hellish relationship by her friend Helena (in a nice crisp perf from Charlotte Parry). More than a half-century since he first threw back his head and howled in rage, Jimmy Porter is still a fearsome spokesman for the have-nothing classes. But there’s nothing ennobling about that righteous anger when it’s directed at the wrong targets. Look Back in Anger Look Back in Anger, Alison Porter | Casting Call Pro Look Back in Anger John Osborne Overview University educated Jimmy Porter and his middle-class wife, Alison, live in a small bed-sit with Jimmy’s friend, Cliff. Jimmy is verbally aggressive and rallies against life, his wife and society in general. Cliff plays the role of peace-maker as Alison and Jimmy’s marriage shows signs of breaking down. When Alison’s school friend Helena arrives, she is appalled at the way Alison is treated by Jimmy. She calls Alison’s father, who comes to get Alison while Jimmy is out. Helena then moves in with Jimmy, taking Alison’s place.

When Alison returns to visit, she tells Helena that she was pregnant and has lost the baby. Helena feels ashamed, even though Alison feels not malice towards her, and decides to leave. Alison then moves back in with Jimmy. Characters Here we list known characters. Clicking on a character will bring up headshots of people who've played this character in the past. Look Back in Anger Summary | GradeSaver Look Back in Anger Summary Look Back in Anger Buy Study Guide Look Back in Anger begins in the attic flat apartment of Jimmy Porter and Alison Porter . The setting is mid-1950's small town England. Jimmy and Alison share their apartment with Cliff Lewis , a young working class man who is best friends with Jimmy. Cliff and Jimmy both come from a working class background, though Jimmy has had more education than Cliff. They are in business together running a sweet-stall. Alison comes from a more prominent family and it is clear from the beginning that Jimmy resents this fact. The first act opens on a Sunday in April. Jimmy and Cliff are reading the Sunday papers while Alison is ironing in a corner of the room.

Jimmy is a hot tempered young man and he begins to try and provoke both Cliff and Alison. He is antagonistic towards Cliff's working class background and makes fun of him for his low intelligence. Cliff is good natured and takes the antagonism. Jimmy attempts to provoke his wife, Alison, by making fun of her family and her well-heeled life before she married him. Jimmy also seems to display a nostalgia for England's powerful past. He notes that the world has entered a "dreary" American age, a fact he begrudgingly accepts. Alison tires of Jimmy's rants and begs for peace. This makes Jimmy more fevered in his insults. Cliff attempts to keep peace between the two and this leads to a playful scuffle between the two. Their wrestling ends up running into Alison, causing her to fall down. Jimmy is sorry for the incident, but Alison makes him leave the room. After Jimmy leaves, Alison confides to Cliff that she is pregnant with Jimmy's child, though she has not yet told Jimmy. Cliff advises her to tell him, but when Cliff goes out and Jimmy re-enters the room, the two instead fall into an intimate game.

Jimmy impersonates a stuffed bear and Alison impersonates a toy squirrel. Cliff returns to tell Alison that her old friend, Helena Charles , has called her on the phone. Alison leaves to take the call and returns with the news that Helena is coming to stay for a visit. Jimmy does not like Helena and goes into a rage in which he wishes that Alison would suffer in order to know what it means to be a real person. He curses her and wishes that she could have a child only to watch it die. Two weeks later, Helena has arrived and Alison discusses her relationship with Jimmy. She tells of how they met and how, in their younger days, they used to crash parties with their friend Hugh Tanner. Jimmy maintains an affection for Hugh's mother, though his relationship with Hugh was strained when Hugh left to travel the world and Jimmy stayed to be with Alison. Jimmy seems to regret that he could not leave, but he is also angry at Hugh for abandoning his mother. Helena inquires about Alison's affectionate relationship with Cliff and Alison tells her that they are strictly friends. Cliff and Jimmy return to the flat and Helena tells them that she and Alison are leaving for church.

Jimmy goes into an anti-religious rant and ends up insulting Alison's family once again. Helena becomes angry and Jimmy dares her to slap him on the face, warning her that he will slap her back. He tells her of how he watched his father die as a young man. His father had been injured fighting in the Spanish Civil War and had returned to England only to die shortly after. Alison and Helena begin to leave for church and Jimmy feels betrayed by his wife. A phone call comes in for Jimmy and he leaves the room. Helena tells Alison that she has called Alison's father to come get her and take her away from this abusive home. Alison relents and says that she will go when her father picks her up the next day. When Jimmy returns, he tells Alison that Mrs. Tanner, Hugh's mother, has become sick and is going to die. Jimmy decides to visit her and he demands that Alison make a choice of whether to go with Helena or with him. Alison picks up her things and leaves for church and Jimmy collapses on the bed, heartbroken by his wife's decision. The next evening Alison is packing and talking with her father, Colonel Redfern .

The Colonel is a soft spoken man who realizes that he does not quite understand the love that exists between Jimmy and Alison. He admits that the actions of him and his wife are partly to blame for their split. The Colonel was an officer in the British military and served in India and he is nostalgic for his time there. He considers his service to be some of the best years of his life. Alison observes that her father is hurt because the present is not the past and that Jimmy is hurt because he feels the present is only the past. Alison begins to pack her toy squirrel, but then she decides not to do so. Helena and Cliff soon enter the scene. Alison leaves a letter for Jimmy explaining why she has left and she gives it to Cliff. After Alison leaves, Cliff becomes angry and gives the letter to Helena, blaming her for the situation. Jimmy returns, bewildered that he was almost hit by Colonel Redfern's car and that Cliff pretended not to see him when he was walking by on the street. He reads Alison's letter and becomes very angry. Helena tells him that Alison is pregnant, but Jimmy tells her that he does not care. He insults Helena and she slaps him, then passionately kisses him.

Several months pass and the third act opens with Jimmy and Cliff once again reading the Sunday papers while Helena stands in the corner ironing. Jimmy and Cliff still engage in their angry banter and Helena's religious tendencies have taken the brunt of Jimmy's punishment. Jimmy and Cliff perform scenes from musicals and comedy shows but when Helena leaves, Cliff notes that things do not feel the same with her here. Cliff then tells Jimmy that he wants to move out of the apartment. Jimmy takes the news calmly and tells him that he has been a loyal friend and is worth more than any woman. When Helena returns, the three plan to go out. Alison suddenly enters. Alison and Helena talk while Jimmy leaves the room. He begins to loudly play his trumpet. Alison has lost her baby and looks sick. Helena tells Alison that she should be angry with her for what she has done, but Alison is only grieved by the loss of her baby. Helena is driven to distraction by Jimmy's trumpet playing and demands that he come into the room. When he comes back in, he laments the fact that Alison has lost the baby but shrugs it off.

Helena then tells Jimmy and Alison that her sense of morality -- right and wrong -- has not diminished and that she knows she must leave. Alison attempts to persuade her to stay, telling her that Jimmy will be alone if she leaves. When Helena leaves, Jimmy attempts to once again become angry but Alison tells him that she has now gone through the emotional and physical suffering that he has always wanted her to feel. He realizes that she has suffered greatly, has become like him, and becomes softer and more tender towards her. The play ends with Jimmy and Alison embracing, once again playing their game of bear and squirrel. ‘Look Back in Anger,’ Starring Matthew Rhys - The New York Times The New York Times Theater Reviews |The Wounded and Wounding in ’50s Britain Search The Wounded and Wounding in ’50s Britain ‘Look Back in Anger,’ Starring Matthew Rhys Look Back in Anger Off Broadway, Play Closing Date: April 8, 2012 Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46th St.

212-719-1300 Continue reading the main story Photo Look Back in Anger, with Sarah Goldberg and Matthew Rhys, in the Roundabout Theater Company revival at the Laura Pels Theater. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times High concept makes for low impact in the new Roundabout Theater Company revival of John Osborne’s classic 1956 play, “Look Back in Anger,” directed by Sam Gold and starring Matthew Rhys of television’s “Brothers and Sisters” as the prototypical angry young man of mid-20th-century British drama. Mr. Gold’s stylized staging of this landmark play, which opened on Thursday night at the Laura Pels Theater, places a stark, literal emphasis on the oppressive intimacy that causes constant conflagrations when the raging fire within Jimmy Porter (Mr. Rhys) meets the kindling of his wife’s meek disengagement and his best friend’s cordial neutrality. The play is performed in front of what strikes the eye as a giant black chalkboard.

(The set design is by Andrew Lieberman.) The actors roll around in the chalk tray at the lip of the stage with barely enough room to squeeze by each other, let alone make love or make tea. And yes, I do mean roll around. The aggressive roughhousing between Jimmy and his pal Cliff (Adam Driver), who spend their dreary days together running a candy stall, might qualify them both for entry-level bouts of mixed martial arts . And Cliff’s tender overtures toward Jimmy’s wife, Alison (Sarah Goldberg), often take on the kind of heated ferocity that gets them colored lights going, to borrow a line from Stanley Kowalski. Photo Adam Driver, left, and Matthew Rhys in “Look Back in Anger,” John Osborne's 1956 play. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times What is dismayingly absent from Mr. Gold’s torpid production, unfortunately, is any palpable sense of the fraught emotional connections among these characters.

They may be living in one another’s pockets — and groping one another’s bodies — but they never seem truly to care about the contents of one another’s souls, despite Jimmy’s brutalizing attempts to seek solace for his frustrations by excavating a matching sense of alienation in his wife and his friend. Continue reading the main story Mr. Osborne’s drama about the tempestuous romance between the working-class Jimmy and the genteel Alison caused a sensation when it made its debut at the Royal Court Theater in 1956. “I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see ‘Look Back in Anger,’ ” Kenneth Tynan wrote in his celebratory review. “It is the best young play of its decade.” The wounded (and wounding) hearts and driving ambitions of British working-class men would become a common theme in plays and films, embodied by actors like Alan Bates (the original Cliff) and Albert Finney. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The play’s status as a cause célèbre from a turbulent era might seem to put a time stamp on the forehead of Mr.

Osborne’s antihero, but it has been rewardingly revived in recent years, most notably at the National Theater in London, where Michael Sheen gave a memorably febrile performance in a 1999 production. The economic malaise smothering the globe today, leaving a generation of young men gloomy over their diminished prospects, might seem a viable occasion for another bruising few rounds in the ring with Jimmy. Mr. Gold, who has emerged as one of the finest directors of new plays in New York theater in recent years (he’s currently represented on Broadway with “ Seminar ”), doesn’t mistake “Look Back in Anger” for a social-protest tract. In trimming the text he has sliced away some of Jimmy’s tirades against the ossified social and economic system, including an attack on Alison’s friend Helena (Charlotte Parry) that is full of economic metaphors and references to “forgotten shares in the old traditions” and a “big crash” on the way. He rightly sees Osborne’s drama as a story of youthful insecurity inflamed by lack of opportunity and the terrifying, destabilizing force of love.

Jimmy cannot bear the thought that he alone feels the heavy weight of life’s aimless cruelty and the injustice of the starkly stratified British social system. But in Mr. Rhys’s studied but rarely stimulating performance, his blistering yearning for some company in his cage never rises above a stable room temperature. Video Excerpt: 'Look Back in Anger' Matthew Rhys, left, and Adam Driver in the Roundabout Theater Company revival of John Osbourne's 1956 play. (Video courtesy of the production.) By Roundabout Theater on Publish Date February 2, 2012. . Watch in Times Video » embed Making his New York theater debut after playing alongside Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths in the enjoyably soapy “Brothers and Sisters,” the Welsh-born Mr. Rhys captures the lighter side of Jimmy with an appealing friskiness, whether he’s goofing music-hall style with Cliff or skittering around playing at love games with Alison during one of their rare truces. The bursts of violence and tears arrive on cue too, but without ever feeling rooted in profound alienation. The cloud cover of sneers, pouts and snarls never parts to reveal the anguish and vulnerability underlying them.

Ms. Goldberg’s Alison is ill served by Mr. Lieberman’s gritty set design. Given that Alison spends much of the first scene carefully ironing her husband’s shirts — and later Cliff’s pants — it seems pretty bizarre that her caretaking instincts would not also include cleaning up the piles of broken, food-encrusted dishes that litter the strip of stage on which the play is performed. That’s forgivable. Less so is the manner in which Alison greets Jimmy’s taunts not with the exhausted resignation of the text but with angry glares and glowering sulks, not to mention those almost antagonistic bouts of flirting with Cliff. It hardly feels momentous — or even surprising — when she chooses allegiance with Helena and her parents (and by extension her class and its prerogatives) over Jimmy in what should be the wrenching emotional turning point. (And despite an extensive list of London acting credits — this production marks her New York stage debut — Ms. Goldberg has a Canadian accent that tends to travel somewhat cavalierly up and down the social scale.) Ms. Parry’s crisp Helena is well judged, and while Mr.

Driver brims rather too explosively with animal spirits for the retiring Cliff, who plays the impartial referee in the simmering war between Jimmy and Alison, he embodies the role with a captivating gusto and supplies a creditable Welsh accent. (No doubt with some helpful advice from Mr. Rhys.) Much as I would like to cheer the bold stylistic choices Mr. Gold has made — the Roundabout is hardly an epicenter of innovative revivals, after all — the cramped, scum-strewn confines of the stage design have an analogue in the pinched, mostly ineffective performances. Jimmy Porter could fill an opera house with his bellowing hunger for a bigger, better life and a loyal love to share it with. Despite Jimmy’s loud noodling on the trumpet from the sidelines, in this production the sound of his despair never comes close to reaching the requisite volume. Look Back in Anger Look Back in Anger, Jimmy Porter | Casting Call Pro Look Back in Anger John Osborne Overview University educated Jimmy Porter and his middle-class wife, Alison, live in a small bed-sit with Jimmy’s friend, Cliff. Jimmy is verbally aggressive and rallies against life, his wife and society in general.

Cliff plays the role of peace-maker as Alison and Jimmy’s marriage shows signs of breaking down. When Alison’s school friend Helena arrives, she is appalled at the way Alison is treated by Jimmy. She calls Alison’s father, who comes to get Alison while Jimmy is out. Helena then moves in with Jimmy, taking Alison’s place. When Alison returns to visit, she tells Helena that she was pregnant and has lost the baby. Helena feels ashamed, even though Alison feels not malice towards her, and decides to leave. Alison then moves back in with Jimmy. Characters Here we list known characters. Clicking on a character will bring up headshots of people who've played this character in the past. Look Back in Anger Summary - eNotes.com Look Back in Anger Summary Homework Help Look Back in Anger Summary In John Osborne's play, Look Back in Anger, the overeducated and underemployed Jimmy Porter rails against his work and life. He often lashes out at his wife, Alison, who he sees as uppity. Jimmy's anger and frustration lead Alison to move back in with her father, but by the end of the play, they manage to reconcile. Jimmy runs a little candy shop with his friend Cliff Lewis.

He's dissatisfied with this job and feels that he deserves more out of life. His anger causes his wife Alison to leave him, at the urging of her friend Helena. Helena and Jimmy get into a fight when Alison leaves, but it turns into passion, and they stay together as a couple for several months. Alison, who has miscarried, comes back to the house. Helena, feeling guilty, reconciles with Alison and leaves Jimmy. Alison and Jimmy seem to be back together at the end of the play. link Link Look Back in Anger opens on a lazy, mid-1950’s Sunday afternoon in a one-room attic apartment in a town in the English Midlands. As usual, Jimmy Porter and his friend and business partner, Cliff Lewis, are reading the Sunday papers while Jimmy’s wife, Alison, irons. As usual, Jimmy is verbally bashing everyone and everything around him, including Cliff and Alison—who seem to take his anger in stride. What makes Jimmy so angry?

To support a political reading of Look Back in Anger, critics cite Jimmy’s famous speech near the end of the play, “there aren’t any good, brave causes left,” suggesting that Jimmy’s anger comes from his disappointment that the faded Edwardian glory of England can no longer be real and felt with conviction and enthusiasm. This interpretation is supported by an earlier passage in the play in which Jimmy is quite nostalgic about the Edwardian world of Alison’s father, Colonel Redfern: “all home-made cakes and croquet, bright ideas, bright uniforms . . . what a romantic picture.” Jimmy admits that “if you’ve no world of your own, it’s rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else’s.” In his contemporary England, Jimmy sees only political decay and the pretense of continued health. As an intelligent, articulate, and educated twenty-five-year-old, Jimmy has not been able to find work that matches his skills, so he earns a meager living running a street-corner candy stand with Cliff as his partner.

Part of him reaches for more success, symbolized most eloquently in his frequent, offstage riffs on his jazz trumpet, but part of him mistrusts success because he does not trust aspiration in a country where aspiration is associated with all that is false and hollow. From his demeaning social position, Jimmy lashes out at all the self-important people around him. His anger strikes at everything associated with British bureaucracy, but, unhappily, it also overflows into mistreatment of his wife and his friend Cliff. A more psychological and domestic interpretation of the play often points to Jimmy’s pain over his father’s death. When Jimmy was ten years old, he spent a year watching his father die. To him, the rest of the family did not seem to care, and Jimmy sees a similar lack of sensitivity in Alison. He calls her “Lady Pusillanimous” (meaning cowardly), a “monument to non-attachment,” and in one of his verbal tirades even wishes that some catastrophe would shock her out of her lethargy, even something horrible such as having a child die. This is indeed what happens, and that tragedy serves, ironically, as the reconciling force in their marriage.

There are other interpretations of Jimmy’s anger, but his complexity derives from the fact that the precise cause of his discontent remains elusive. In fact, audiences and critics find Jimmy compelling because the richness of his pain defies final analysis. Jimmy’s anger cools a little at the end of the play but only because his conflict with Alison is resolved at a very great price. When Alison discovers that she is pregnant, an old friend, Helena Charles, comes to stay with the Porters, and Jimmy’s badgering intensifies; his harassment is eventually directed toward Helena. In reaction, Helena convinces Alison that she should leave Jimmy and live again with her father, and Alison leaves. At the end of act 2, however, Helena is drawn by some strange attraction to Jimmy and offers herself to him, becoming his mistress. When act 3 begins, it is Sunday afternoon again and Jimmy and Cliff are once more reading their Sunday papers. Now, however, in a mirror image of the opening of the play, Helena has replaced Alison at the ironing board. Both the resolution of the conflict and the end of the play come as Alison returns, having lost both the baby and her fertility.

In a scene that some critics find insufficiently motivated, Helena leaves and gives Jimmy back to Alison. The play ends with Jimmy and Alison reconciling, in part because Jimmy is satisfied that Alison’s pain has brought her more in tune with his own suffering. The reconciliation is richly ambiguous. Have Jimmy and Alison repaired a marriage worth saving, or have they simply hid from problems they cannot face and handle? The enduring quality of Look Back in Anger is that either of these readings, and more, can be defended. More Content: Summary (hide) link Link On a Sunday evening in April, Jimmy Porter and Cliff Lewis, both working-class men, and Jimmy’s upper-class wife, Alison, are in the attic flat they share. Music is playing on the radio, and while Alison irons, Jimmy and Cliff read the newspapers. From time to time, Jimmy makes acid comments on what he is reading, orders the other two to minister to his needs, or points out Cliff’s defects, in particular his ignorance and his ineffectuality. Jimmy’s worst venom is reserved for his wife, who he says is as vacuous as her mother and father and, like them, incapable of thought.

Cliff defends Alison, and she treats him with sisterly affection, pressing his trousers and giving him cigarettes, despite the fact that the doctor and Jimmy have forbidden him to smoke. Furious because Cliff and Alison refuse to fight with him, Jimmy contrasts their lethargy with the energy of his former mistress, Madeline, and of Webster, a gay friend of Alison. He then returns to his verbal attacks on Alison, her family, and her gender, claiming that women’s worst vice is that they are noisy. Increasingly annoyed with both Alison and Cliff, Jimmy turns off the radio, contending that with Alison ironing and Cliff turning the pages of his newspaper, it is impossible to hear the music. Cliff finally insists that Jimmy apologize to them both, and in the resulting scuffle, the ironing board is knocked down and Alison is burned. Angry at last, she tells Jimmy to leave. He walks out of the room, and while Cliff is treating her injury, she confides in him. She is miserable, she says, and even though she is pregnant, she is seriously considering leaving Jimmy.

Jimmy comes back into the room and apologizes to Alison, attempting to explain his behavior as a reaction against his feeling that he is trapped by his love for her; he also acknowledges an abiding anger because Alison has never experienced the pain that he has and cannot understand him. Alison is then called to the telephone downstairs. She returns to report that she has invited an actor friend, Helena Charles, who has just come to town, to stay with them for a few days until she finds a place to live. Two weeks later, Helena has established herself in the household, and, as Cliff commented, the tension has mounted. It is true that by doing most of the cooking Helena is a great help to Alison; however, she makes no secret of her dislike for Jimmy. She pressures Alison to take immediate action about her situation, either by telling Jimmy about her pregnancy and demanding that he become a responsible member of society or by leaving him and returning to her parents. Jimmy makes no secret of his hatred for Helena, and after Alison announces that she is going to church with her friend, Jimmy draws the battle lines. Helena and he are fighting for Alison, he says, and he is determined to win.

Without Alison’s knowledge, however, Helena has already sent a telegram to Alison’s father, Colonel Redfern, telling him that his daughter needs him. Somewhat uncertainly, Alison says that she will go home with her father. She does not tell Jimmy of her plans, but when he is summoned to the deathbed of his best friend’s mother and begs Alison to accompany him, she coldly refuses and walks out, followed by Helena, who is accompanying her to church. When Colonel Redfern appears at the Porter apartment the next afternoon, Jimmy has not returned. In his conversation with Alison, her father shows considerable sympathy for Jimmy, even commenting that Alison seems to have learned a lot from him. He also suggests that Alison’s mother has wronged Jimmy by hiring detectives to find some way to discredit or destroy him. Alison has made her decision, however. In response to Cliff’s question as to who will break the news of her departure to her husband, she hands him a letter for Jimmy. Indicating that he does not like to see anyone suffer, Cliff goes out to get something to eat and, he says, probably to have a few drinks.

The colonel had assumed that Helena would be leaving along with Alison, but, as Cliff has predicted, Helena makes excuses and remains. When Jimmy appears, he is so furious because Alison has slighted the dying woman that he does not seem to care much about her having walked out on him. He is not even particularly affected by Helena’s revelation that Alison is pregnant. Helena slaps him, but when Jimmy collapses with grief, she kisses him and pulls him into an embrace. Several months later, Helena is doing the ironing, sweetly approving of everything Jimmy does and says. She tells Jimmy that she does not intend to go to church, and Jimmy exults at having led her into a state of sin. Cliff, who does not like Helena and obviously misses Alison, is planning to move out. Cliff and Jimmy, both in a good humor, make up a vaudeville skit, which, as usual, ends in a tussle. Helena tells Jimmy that she loves him, and, although he does not respond in kind, he is tender and affectionate toward her, even offering to take her out on the town. Unexpectedly, Alison arrives, looking extremely unwell.

Jimmy refuses to speak to his wife and leaves the room. When they are alone, the women confide in each other. Helena tells Alison that her affair with Jimmy is finished and that she intends to leave him. Alison tells Helena that she lost her baby and cannot have another. Concerned about Jimmy, Alison urges Helena to remain with him, but Helena reiterates her opinion that all is over between the two of them, in part because they are so different and in part because she cannot overcome her feelings of guilt. The women argue as to which of them, if either, Jimmy really needs. When Jimmy comes back into the room, Helena tells him of her decision. Angrily, he sweeps her possessions off the dresser and thrusts them into her arms, and she goes downstairs to pack. Still angry about Alison’s indifference to the death of his friend’s mother, Jimmy tells Alison how disappointed he has been in her, and she collapses on the floor, begging his forgiveness. In losing the baby, she says, she has at last experienced the pain of living and so can be what he wants her to be.

Tenderly, Jimmy comforts her, and, clinging together, the two promise that from now on they will protect each other in a world that is inimical to love.

Question: Jimmy and Alison Porter are characters in which John Osborne play?
Answer: Look Back In Anger